“Oh,” I laughed, “I haven’t even talked to her outside of Blue deck.”

  “You’re supposed to have a full physical.”

  I pulled her close, and I kissed her.

  “You’re the one I’m interested in right now, girl,” I told her.

  For a moment, she hesitated at her professional demeanor, warring with her basic desires. Then she made her decision, reaching up to wrap her arms around my neck.

  “You’re right,” she whispered. “This life is too short. Each of our lives is too short.”

  We kissed then, and she responded eagerly, her hands tangling in my hair as she pressed herself up against me. This was quite a turn of events, and I welcomed it.

  “I’ve wanted this for months,” she admitted between kisses. “Even when you were giving me orders.”

  “Especially when I was giving you orders,” I replied, my hands exploring the curve of her waist between her uniform jacket.

  I dug underneath, and she laughed. “You’ve been getting off on ordering me around, haven’t you?”

  I smiled at her because she seemed to be enjoying the concept. Truth was, I hadn’t really cared one way or the other.

  When we were suited up and carrying rifles around, I was at least 90% business. What I enjoyed then was a competent soldier who did her job.

  But now that we were clearly on off time, I didn’t give a rip about any of that. Instead, I figured she would probably like it if I played her little game.

  “I think it’s you who’s been enjoying being insubordinate whenever you got a chance.”

  “You haven’t seen anything yet, James,” she said.

  I began unfastening her uniform, ripping and pawing at each button and clasp. The smart cloth was fighting me a little bit, trying to zip back up as quickly as I pulled it apart. When her jacket finally fell away, revealing her naked body beneath, I couldn’t help but appreciate the view. Sometimes killing a woman and regrowing her without any extra damage or fat was a wonderful thing.

  Then we moved to the narrow bed, shedding clothes and inhibitions with equal enthusiasm.

  For a while, all the threats of Galactic invasions, parasitic possession, and sudden violent death fell away from our minds.

  Armel’s sword lying on the deck beside my bunk seemed to realize it had been abandoned. Its red gleaming light dimmed, indicating that it was powering itself down. It flashed and gleamed in the dim room. We ignored it and enjoyed ourselves.

  Vaguely, I hoped it didn’t have a camera in the pommel or something like that. I wouldn’t put it past Armel to build something that sneaky into a weapon. After thinking for a moment about putting it back in its box, I finally mentally shrugged and ignored it.

  Armel, after all, was stored in my tapper. At least his brain was. If he ever lived again, and he ever miraculously got his sword back… Well, I supposed by that time, he would’ve earned the eyeful he’d get from watching Cherish climb all over me like a cheerleader in the back of the bus at the end of the big game.

  -23-

  The big machinery in the drop pod bay on Red Deck revved and hummed as Legion Varus prepared for an all-out planetary assault.

  For openers, we were sending down three full cohorts using drop-pods. The rest would come down aboard lifters after we secured a beachhead.

  Naturally, what with Graves being a total douchebag, it was decided to send down cohorts 1, 2, and 3 first. Being part of cohort 3 meant that I was one of the 3,600 soldiers suited up in combat gear, making final checks on everything.

  My weaponeers worked their belchers, my light troops fondled their snap-rifles—but the most important group were the heavy troopers. They, like myself, held morph-rifles cradled in their hands.

  Scorpio rumbled as she slid into orbit. Somehow, down here on Red Deck, you felt closer to outer space, closer to the hull itself, and you could actually feel the gravitational tug of nearby planets. Gravitational and centrifugal forces could knock an unwary man right off his feet.

  As we hadn’t started the drop yet, top officers like myself were invited to yet another frigging briefing. I stood at a tactical display, studying the orbital reconnaissance.

  Kepler-62E spread out below us in holographic detail. The agricultural world looked simply peaceful from space, vast geometric patterns of farmland stretching across the most temperate of the three continents. I could see irrigation channels gleaming like silver threads in the sunlight. Massive processing facilities dotted the landscape like metallic monuments. I realized, looking at the place, that it must be producing a lot more food than the colonists themselves could eat. Not in all the worlds of the Kepler system combined could consume so much food.

  They must be exporting it, probably using gateway posts. But… to where? Earth? Did other remote colonies lack good arable farmland? I didn’t know, and I barely cared. Our problem was to recapture this valuable real estate, not to worry about its operation.

  “Centurion, sir, those fields, they’re still being worked,” Natasha pointed out, sliding one finger across the sensor controls and tapping on a numeric indicator. “I’m reading coordinated movement patterns all across the major agricultural centers. There’s harvesting equipment, transport vehicles, processing machinery, everything is operating at peak efficiency, maybe even beyond that.”

  Harris checked his morph-rifle’s ammunition counter for the third time in five minutes. “Busy little beavers, aren’t these fucks?” he said. “Just look at them go. Thirty thousand colonists go dark, no, make that fifty thousand—but they’re still bringing in the crops. Who does that? Something is seriously wrong with people like that. They’ve got to be possessed.”

  I nodded, unable to deny his conclusions. Carlos wandered by soon, studying his bioscanner readings with a troubled expression. “The activity program patterns, they’re too uniform, no variation in their work schedule, no breaks, nothing. They’re like human robots down there,” he said.

  “Like we cloned fifty thousand Tribune Graves copies with maybe some Adjunct Collins thrown in,” Harris remarked, chuckling. “We all know she’s got a stick up her butt, too.”

  I cuffed the back of his head, thumping him one. It was an automatic reaction.

  Normally, officers didn’t like to be seen slapping at one another, but as I’d just spent the night with Collins, I felt poor Cherish deserved a little better than what Harris was dishing right now.

  He glared at me evilly. He didn’t say anything, he just walked away. That was fine with me.

  Moving away from the console, I went to the observation windows. From there, I could see Kepler-62E rotating slowly beneath us. That planet’s orange sun cast everything in a warm, golden light that made the agricultural plains look almost idyllic, but I’d learned ever since I was a kid not to trust peaceful appearances. That went double when the land was full of parasitic nanites.

  At last, my tapper lit up with some red text. Graves was on his way down. It was time to at least start looking busy. I raised my voice to address my assembled troops.

  “We’re looking at a coordinated enemy with advanced technology and no fear of death. They’ve had weeks to prepare for our arrival, and they know we’re coming. I expect organized resistance using whatever tools they can get their hands on.”

  Tribune Graves emerged from the command center moments after that little speech, his expression grim as he reviewed final intelligence reports. “I know what you’re all thinking,” he said. “Why don’t we just bombard this planet down to the bedrock and be done with it?” He shook his head slowly. “That isn’t an option. The agricultural infrastructure down there represents a trillion credits worth of Earth’s investment and enough food to keep a billion Blood-Worlders alive.”

  Ah, I thought to myself, so that’s where this food was being transported.

  “No, this has to be a ground assault,” Graves continued. “Sector by sector clearance. And, we’re going to keep the destruction down to a minimum.”

  Harris raised his hand. “But what about the deaths, sir?”

  Graves shrugged. “These colonists may not be salvageable. If they get in your way, kill them. If we can revive them somehow and put them back to work, fine. If we can’t, we’ll ship in some new colonists. I suppose Hegemony will give the replacements a signing bonus, or something.”

  “No, no, sir,” Harris said. “I meant, what about our casualty rates?”

  Graves frowned at him, twisting up his face. “I’ll make sure that you’re the first to know about our policies in that department, Harris.”

  This did nothing to make Harris happy, but it did shut him up. Graves then started a little pep speech, and I soon tuned it out. I was looking back out the window at the planet below. It actually looked pretty nice from space—but looks were oftentimes deceiving.

  Eventually, Primus Winslade showed up. I tuned back in to hear what he had to say, although I didn’t expect much of importance.

  “Three simultaneous landing zones will prevent the enemy from concentrating their forces against any single point. Each cohort will take responsibility for one sector, eliminate resistance, secure facilities.”

  I glanced at a placement map showing our assigned area. It was an eastern agricultural region dominated by vast grain fields and a major processing center.

  “What about the civvies, sir?” I asked.

  “What’s that, McGill?”

  “Civilian casualties. If these people can be cured or separated from their parasites somehow…”

  Graves raised a gauntlet to cut me off. “Stop that talk right there, Centurion. Intel has confirmed complete saturation levels of the infection across the colony. Every colonist is assumed to be compromised. This is an extermination mission, McGill. No prisoners, no attempts at rescues, no kissing the girls. Just kill them all. Let the revival machine sort it out later.”

  Harris grinned at that pronouncement. “Finally, a mission with sensible objectives!”

  It was my turn to frown when Cherish Collins began checking her communication equipment, clearing all the clean channels to the squad leaders.

  “Tribune,” she asked, “what’s our extraction timeline? How long do we have to secure the planet?”

  “We have a week slated for the operation,” Graves told her. “After that, Scorpio moves to the next system on our patrol route. Anyone still on the surface gets left behind until the next transport arrives—assuming there is another transport.”

  The implications were clear. This wasn’t just a mission. It was a race against time. If we had just a week to eliminate thousands of infected colonists and secure an entire agricultural system, it seemed insane. But to do otherwise risked being stranded on a hostile planet with limited supplies.

  “Drop-pods will be launching in T-minus ten minutes,” announced the deck officer. “All personnel to assigned pods. Final equipment checks. Prepare for combat deployment.”

  I made my way to the drop pod machine our unit was clustering around. Another unit went before us, one from the 1st Cohort. Graves liked order, and he was dropping people by the numbers. He watched them going down, each of them getting shoved down into that hole, the pods banging shut around them. Then, they were loaded like bullets into chambers and fired toward the planet.

  There was only one speed with which drop pods were deployed by Scorpio, and that was as fast as humanly possible. Red Deck bucked every time one of the sad sacks in their little pods was fired out of the bottom of it under our feet.

  The roar, the whoosh, the hammering went on and on. We had to shout to hear each other.

  Harris, Collins, Carlos, Natasha, dozens of other specialists, recruits, heavy troopers, and light all lined up. One by one, we dropped down into the loading breach and were fired like so many artillery shells down toward the hapless world below.

  Once I was in my pod and riding to my possible death at breakneck speeds, the intercom squawked. “Atmospheric entry will be rough. High winds, electrical storms in several sectors. Expect hard landings and possible pod dispersal beyond optimal parameters.” The AI was so helpful at times like this. It could tell you how you were screwed with absolutely zero concern for your state of mind.

  Through my pod’s tiny screen, I watched as all the other drop pods were fired around us. Row after row, identical cylinders, each containing squads of Legion soldiers ready to bring Earth’s justice to a compromised world. They were fired in rapid machine gun style out of the ass end of Scorpio. It was an impressive sight despite the fact I’d seen it many times before. These large military deployments from space were always dramatic. It got my heart pounding whenever I was part of one.

  The pod’s acceleration was brutal at first, and I shot away from Scorpio toward the planet’s surface, wedged in with a massive amount of absorptive foam, which pretty much pinned me down. I watched as the pods flashed past in the black of space.

  Soon, the glowing, growing curve of Kepler-62E dominated my limited view. The atmosphere was hazy and golden. There were clouds here and there, but not a lot of them. It did seem, however, that we were plunging right down into the dark clump of clouds that must be the storm they’d been talking about.

  Reentry into the atmosphere was everything the AI had promised and more. My pod shook violently as atmospheric friction built up around my heat shield. Warning lights flashed red as electrical systems strained against the planet’s magnetic field. Through my small display, I could see other pods spreading out across the sky like deadly rain.

  “Two minutes to impact,” announced the AI, “prepare for landing sequence.”

  I activated my HUD with eye movements, bringing up individual status readings for each soldier in my group. Now that we were past the blackout stage, I could actually see green lights across the board. That was good. Everyone was conscious. Nobody was even injured yet.

  Of course, that could all change very quickly.

  We came screaming down through the alien atmosphere. At the end, the pods reversed, aiming our feet at the ground instead of our heads.

  That was sort of a relief. At least I wasn’t going to go splat due to an equipment malfunction.

  The parachutes deployed with a violent jerk at the end and threw me against my restraints.

  Below, the agricultural plains of Kepler-62E spread out in geometric perfection. Massive fields of grain stretched to the horizon, broken only by clusters of farm buildings and gleaming towers of processing facilities.

  “There’s movement on the ground. I’m picking up movement!” Natasha reported. She was somehow using her equipment. She’d probably hacked the tiny screen in her own drop-pod.

  That was why I had her along. She was the best of her kind.

  “I count multiple groups of individuals in the field directly below us. I’m not sure how they knew we were coming or where we were going to land, but they’re not taking any cover or showing any reaction to our approach. It’s like they’re staring up at us.”

  That was my very first inkling that something might be wrong. Any reasonable person looking up at the sky watching military drop-pods descending from orbit would either run for shelter or grab weapons and prepare to fight. These farmers were doing neither. They were just continuing to work as if nothing unusual was happening.

  “Pod will touch down in 30 seconds,” said the AI. “Prepare for ground deployment.”

  The impact was hard enough to rattle my teeth despite the shock absorption systems. Warning klaxons wailed as the pod fell over on its side and the hatch blew away, revealing the agricultural landscape around me.

  I was the first man out, rifle raised, scanning for immediate threats. We’d landed in the middle of a vast cornfield, the stalks rising three meters high in all directions. The air smelled like growing plants and rich earth, with an underlying metallic tang that reminded me of the research station.

  Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the rhythmic sound of harvesting equipment. Hell, they were still farming even now. Crazy fucks.

  “Establish the perimeter!” I shouted out.

  Specialist Rodriguez was first to rush by between the corn rows. He rushed past me, crashing through the plants. He got out into an open area, the edge of a row, maybe a road, I couldn’t tell.

  “I’m seeing figures, sir,” he reported, “moving through the crops, but they’re not approaching our position yet.”

  Carlos joined Collins light squads. They were forming a defensive circle around the landing zone.

  “This is friggin’ weird,” he said. “Usually when I drop by in someone’s backyard, they at least come over to say hello.”

  “Either that, or they shoot your ass,” Harris said.

  “Yeah, sometimes that, too.”

  “Maybe they’re planning an ambush,” suggested Collins, monitoring the communication channels for reports from the other landing zones. “Cohorts 1 and 2 report similar situations. Active agricultural work continuing despite military landings. They’ve all observed seemingly unconcerned, but fortunately so far non-hostile, workers.”

  Carlos was taking readings with his bioscanner, his expression growing increasingly troubled. “Centurion, I’m detecting dozens of enhanced human signatures throughout this immediate area. They’re the same nanite particle concentrations we saw at the research station, but the density here... I would say it’s even higher. It’s not just in their brains, James,” he said, looking at me. “No, McGill, it’s in their muscles, too.”

  I blinked a few times, thinking that over. I guess it made a certain sort of sense, but what good could nanite particles do inside a man’s muscle fibers? I had a feeling we were about to find out.

  I scanned the cornfield around us. Once I got to a high spot and could see over the tops of the plants, I noticed how the neat rows created natural corridors and hiding places. Perfect terrain for an ambush, if that’s what the infected farmers had in mind.

  Modern cornfields, of course, weren’t made entirely in rows. They were more like a carpet of grass, much thicker, tied together, hard to move through. It was all perfect terrain for an ambush, if that’s what the infected farmers had in mind.